1NC Korean Unification

Road Map: 2 off then case

Trump Politics DA

Trump is really unpopular right now

The Hill 2/3 Brooke Seipel, February 3, 2017. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/317845-trump-has-lowest-approval-ratings-of-any-new-president-everPresident Trump has the highest disapproval rating of any newpresident ever polled, according to a new survey. A majority of respondents, 53 percent,disapprove of how Trump is handling his job in the CNN/ORC International poll released Friday, while 44 percent approve.

Trump is the only president to hold a net negative rating this early inCNN reported that

a presidency. However, the vast majority of respondents, 78 percent, say Trump is handling the presidency asthey would have expected. The network compared Trump's ratings to past presidents, noting that Ronald Reagan'sfirst approval rating measured at 51 percent from Gallup in 1981 7 points above Trump's rating in the CNN poll but Reagan's disapproval number was far lower than Trump's at just 13 percent, compared to Trump's 53 percent.George W. Bush, the last president to be elected without winning the popular vote, also held a more positiveapproval rating at 57 percent in February of his first year in office. Trump's first two weeks as president have beenpunctuated by national protests over his executive order denying entry to nationals from seven predominantlyMuslims nations for 90 days while suspending the U.S. refugee program for 120 days. A majority of those polled byCNN, 53 percent, oppose Trump's executive order, while 47 percent say they favor the action. Trump's executiveorder to construct a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border also faces opposition, with 60 percent of Americans surveyed byCNN opposed to the proposal. Trump said last week that construction on the wall could begin in "months." The CNNpoll of 1,002 adults was conducted Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 via landlines and cellphones with an overall margin of error of 3percentage points.

Engagement with China now key for Trump to achieve everything in

his agendait allows him to be perceived as more rational andincreases his popularity.Chen 12/14 (Dingding Chen, professor of International Relations at JinanUniversity, 4 Tips for US President-Elect Trumps China Policy,http://thediplomat.com/2016/12/4-tips-for-us-president-elect-trumps-china-policy/)In a little over a month since Donald Trumps stunning victory in the presidential election, the president-elect hasalready, as he promised during the campaign, adopted a new thinking on China, most notably with his highlycontroversial remarks on the United States one China policy. It all started with a seemingly harmless courtesycall from Taiwans leader Tsai Ing-wen and developed into a mini-crisis in U.S.-China relations after Trump doubleddown by threatening to change a decades-long U.S. stance in the form of the one China policy. All theseunpredictable moves have seriously worried analysts in both countries as many prominent scholars have comeout criticizing Trumps dangerous gambit. As the two most powerful economies in the world today, such a rocky it is imperativestart for U.S.-China relations certainly will not benefit anyone, including the world. Therefore,for Trump to pay serious attention to the following issues if he still hopes for a stableand mature U.S.-China relationship. First, Trump must focus on the long-term side of U.S.-China relations. The U.S. democratic system, with its presidential election every four years and otherelections in between, unfortunately pushes its leaders to focus on short-term gains rather than long-term nationalbenefits. Trump is under tremendous pressures to deliver his campaign promises quickly; to make America greatagain. Given his narrow victory in the presidential election (winning the electoral vote, but losing the popular vote),it is understandable that he might want to score points on the economy first. As a result, China becomes the target.But this thinking is dangerous, as the United States and China are engaged in long-termcompetition and cooperation. In the long run, both powers will benefit so long as they are patient in resolving theirdifferences while making an effort toward pursuing common interests. Any short term policies byTrump that antagonize China would only make America worse off anddefinitely not great again. Second, Trump must learn more about the history of U.S.-China relations.Trump is known for regarding himself as a smarter than everyone else and is not very interested in learning oracquiring knowledge. Despite his bragging about having read many books on China, his recent behavior andremarks demonstrate the opposite. There are already too many biases and misunderstandings between the UnitedStates and China due to a variety of reasons, with one of them being the complicated history of their relationship. Anew book by veteran journalist John Pomfret, titled The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, would be a good Third, Trump muststart as it details the two century love-hate relationship between the two powers.develop a win-win economic relationship with China. Given Trumps campaign promisesand the dire working class situation in the United States, it is very likely that he will initiate trade and currency warsagainst China, with the hope of restoring the U.S. economy and creating additional jobs at home. While suchthinking is tempting, it is imperative for Trump to learn and understand the economic logic behind U.S. economicengagement with China. The main reason why manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the United States is notbecause of globalization, as Trump seems to argue, but because of technological developments such as automation.China can help the United States create more jobs at home by encouraging more Chinese investment into the U.S.and reduce the U.S. trade deficit by importing more U.S. goods, but a trade or currency war would only anger China,with possible economic retaliation to follow.A low-key dialogue with the Chinesegovernment would produce more effective results, unless Trump is only interested inappealing to populist voices at home. Finally, to achieve a stable and mature U.S.-Chinarelationship, Trump needs to be more patient with China though this may proveespecially difficult for a 70-year-old man whose temperament might be a issue (and his Twitter account doesnt helpeither). It might be difficult for Trump himself to demonstrate self-control when tensions become high in bilateralrelations, but he could delegate to his closer aides, such as the incoming secretary of state and others, and havethem conduct various dialogues with China. Saving face is important in China culturally and for the United Statesas well to some degree. If, unfortunately, a crisis were to break out between the United States and China, Trumpshould be very careful not to let his emotions take control, which would only make things worse. Above all, Trumpneeds to focus on his domestic agendas and not stir up troubles abroad, especially with an important economicpartner like China. A stable and mature strategic relationship with China isone fundamental fact that may help realize Trumps agenda tomake America great again. And for China, good ties with the U.S. will also help make Chinagreat again.

A new Quinnipiac poll finds that Donald Trumps approval rating has soared all the way up to 36 percent, while 44percent of American voters disapprove of his handling of the presidency so far. Now, youll be forgiven for thinkingthat these numbers dont matter. After all, Trump won the presidency even though he was deeply unpopular and heres why Trumps approvalmajorities saw him as unfit for the presidency, right? Yes. Butnumbers are still worth keeping an eye on: If theres anything thatcan possibly get congressional Republicans to exercise meaningfuloversight on Trump or act as a check on him in other ways, itshorrifically awful poll numbers. Of course, not even that might be enough to get them to dothat, but theres at least a chance that they could. Along these lines, one thing that is notable about the newQuinnipiac poll is that it shows Trump may be on very thin ethical ice with the public. For instance: Only 39percent of Americans say Trump is honest, vs. 56 percent who say hes not. Seventy percent support a review ofTrumps finances to identify possible conflicts of interest that may interfere with his job as president. Fifty-fourpercent say Trump has more conflicts of interest than most politicians. A total of 60 percent are either very (41)or somewhat (19) concerned that Trump would veto a law that would be good for the country because it would hurthis business interests. Only 33 percent are very satisfied with Trumps plan to allow his sons to run hisbusinesses to prevent conflicts of interest. Another 20 percent are only somewhat satisfied, while a total of 44percent are either not so satisfied (12) or not satisfied at all (32) with that. In one sense, these last numbers aregood for Trump a total of 53 percent are either very or somewhat satisfied. On the other hand, those in thesomewhat camp might get a lot shakier and slide into the not-satisfied camp if new information aboutconflicts emerges. Thin ice. And remember, the very fact that Trump has chosen to do nothing meaningful with hisbusiness arrangement to prevent conflicts makes it more likely that such conflicts and possibly full-blowncorruption will indeed take place and will ultimately get uncovered by dogged investigative reporting. By theway: Republicans seem to be just fine with Trumps conflicts. Fifty-three percent of Republicans oppose a review ofhis finances. And 70 percent are satisfied with his arrangement for his businesses. Those numbers among A whole lot is riding on gettingRepublicans are reason for real pessimism.congressional Republicans to stop relentlessly protecting Trump not just on the ethics front, but also in other areas where he isundermining our democracy.Republicans are likely to continue to do nothing to prod Trump to show more transparency about his businessholdings, let alone exercise real oversight. They are likely to hew to Trumps general unwillingness to countenance afull, independent probe into possible Russian meddling in the election, which makes it less likely that serious stepswill be done to prevent it from happening again. And they are likely to continue saying little to rebut Trumps liesabout voter fraud. This isnt just a problem because those lies undermine public faith in ourdemocracy. Its also disconcerting because Trump is vowing an investigation into that nonexistent fraud,potentially laying the groundwork for a likely escalation in GOP efforts to restrict voting rights. It may be thatnothing, ever, will get congressional Republicans to exercise meaningful ethical oversight with regard to Trumpsconflicts; or to support a full, independent probe into Russian meddling; or to declare unequivocally and in aconcerted way that, no, millions of people did not vote illegally in our election; and no, voter fraud is not rampant,as Trump says it is. As I keep shouting at you, there is no denying that the situation right now is really quite bleak.But perhaps if enough new revelations come out about Trump conflicts or corruption, and if Democrats can find newand innovative ways of bringing them to the attention of the public, creating real and sustainedblowback well, maybe this might change.

Keeping Trump on check is key to preventing nuclear warour

evidence is best.

The New York Times, 01/26

It is getting closer to midnight. On Thursday, the group of scientists who orchestrate theDoomsday Clock, a symbolic instrument informing the public when theearth is facing imminent disaster, moved its minute hand from three to twoand a half minutes before the final hour. It was the closest the clock hadbeen to midnight since 1953, the year after the United States and theSoviet Union conducted competing tests of the hydrogen bomb. Thoughscientists decide on the clocks position, it is not a scientific instrument, or even a physical one. The movementof its symbolic hands is decided upon by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.The organization introduced the clock on the cover of its June 1947 edition, placing it at seven minutes tomidnight. Since then, it has moved closer to midnight and farther away, depending on the boards conclusions.Thursdays announcement was made by Rachel Bronson, the executive director andpublisher of the bulletin. She was assisted by the theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, the climatescientist and meteorologist David Titley, and the former United States ambassador Thomas Pickering. Ms. explained why the board had included theBronson, in a post-announcement interview,

30-second mark in the measurement. She said that it was an attention-

catching signal that was meant to acknowledge what a dangerousmoment were in, and how important it is for people to take note.Were so concerned about the rhetoric, and the lack of respectfor expertise, that we moved it 30 seconds, she said. Ratherthan create panic, were hoping that this drives action. In an op-edfor The New York Times, Dr. Titley and Dr. Krauss elaborated on theirconcerns, citing the increasing threats of nuclear weapons and climatechange, as well as President Trumps pledges to impede what they see asprogress on both fronts, as reasons for moving the clock closer to midnight.Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clocklargely because of the statements of a single person, they wrote.But when that person is the new president of the United States,his words matter. The board has held the responsibility for the clocks movements since 1973,when the bulletins editor, Eugene Rabinowitch, died. Composed of scientists, and nuclear and climate experts,the board meets biannually to discuss where the clocks hands should fall in light of world events. In the 1950s,the scientists feared nuclear annihilation, and since then, the board has begun to consider other existentialthreats, including climate change, compromised biosecurity and artificial intelligence. There were crises that theclock was not quick enough to take into account. The Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance, in 1962, did not changethe hands of the clock, which at the time stood at seven minutes to midnight. An explanation on the Bulletinswebsite accounts for this seeming lapse in timekeeping: The Cuban Missile Crisis, for all its potential andultimate destruction, only lasted a few weeks, it says. However, the lessons were quickly apparent when theUnited States and the Soviet Union installed the first hotline between the two capitals to improvecommunications, and, of course, negotiated the 1963 test ban treaty, ending all atmospheric nuclear testing.The end of the Cold War came as a relief to those who had lived in fear ofnuclear annihilation for decades, and the minute hand slowly moved awayfrom danger. In 1990, it was at 10 minutes to midnight. The next year, itwas a full 17 minutes away, at the relatively undisturbing time of 11:43. The illusion that tens ofthousands of nuclear weapons are a guarantor of national security has been stripped away, the Bulletin said at Conflict between India andthe time. But over the next two decades the clock slowly ticked back.

Pakistan, both of whom staged nuclear weapons tests three weeks apart,had the clock at nine minutes to midnight in 1998. By 2007, fears aboutIranian and North Korean nuclear capacity had pushed it to 11:55. By 2015,the scientists were back in a state of unmitigated concern, with the clockat three minutes to midnight, the closest it had been since 1984.Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weaponsmodernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals poseextraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existenceof humanity, the bulletin said. World leaders have failed to act with thespeed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potentialcatastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every personon Earth, it added.Keep trust in democracy alive is key to prevent many scenarios forwar and extinctionDiamond 95Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, December 1995, PromotingDemocracy in the 1990s, http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/ccpdc/pubs/di/1.htmOTHER THREATS This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in thecoming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia nationalist aggression tears at the stability ofEurope and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly powerfulinternational crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and haveutterly corrupted the institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, andbiological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life onEarth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most ofthese new and unconventional threats to security are associated with oraggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy , with itsprovisions for legality, accountability, popular sovereignty, andopenness. LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY The experience of thiscentury offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in atruly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do notaggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify theirleaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their ownpopulations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency.Democracies do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do notbuild weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another.Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring tradingpartnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates forinvestment. They are more environmentally responsible because theymust answer to their own citizens, who organize to protest thedestruction of their environments. They are better bets to honorinternational treaties since they value legal obligations and because theiropenness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret.Precisely because, within their own borders, they respect competition, civilliberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the onlyreliable foundation on which a new world order of international securityand prosperity can be built.

Next Off Allied Proliferation DAWithdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea pushes both SouthKorea and Japan to get nuclear weapons.Brands, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and History atDuke University, 15(Hal, Fools Rush Out? The Flawed Logic of Offshore Balancing,https://twq.elliott.gwu.edu/fools-rush-out-flawed-logic-offshore-balancing)The fundamental reason is that both U.S. influence and international stability are thoroughlyinterwoven with a robust U.S. forward presence. Regarding influence, the protection thatWashington has afforded its allies has equally afforded the United States great sway over those allies policies.43 During the ColdWar and after, for instance, the United States has used the influence provided by its securityposture to veto allies pursuit of nuclear weapons, to obtain more advantageous terms infinancial and trade agreements, and even to affect the composition of allied nations governments.44 More broadly, it hasused its alliances as vehicles for shaping political, security, and economic agendas inkey regions and bilateral relationships, thus giving the United States an outsized voice on a range of important issues. To be clear,this influence has never been as pervasive as U.S. officials might like, or as some observers might imagine. But by any reasonablestandard of comparison, it has nonetheless been remarkable. One can tell a similar story about the relative stability of the post-warorder. As even some leading offshore balancers have acknowledged, the lack of conflict in regions like Europe in recent decades isnot something that has occurred naturally. It has occurred because the American pacifier has suppressed precisely the dynamicsthat previously fostered geopolitical turmoil. That pacifier has limited arms races and security competitions by providing the It has soothed historical rivalries byprotection that allows other countries to under-build their militaries.

affording a climate of security in which powerful countries like Germany and

Japan could be revived economically and reintegrated into thriving and fairlycooperative regional orders. It has induced caution in the behavior of alliesand adversaries alike, deterring aggression and dissuading otherdestabilizing behavior. As John Mearsheimer has noted, the United States effectively acts as a nightwatchman, lending order to an otherwise disorderly and anarchical environment.45 What would happen if

Washington backed away from this role? The most logical answer is that both U.S. influenceand global stability would suffer. With respect to influence, the United States would effectivelybe surrendering the most powerful bargaining chip it has traditionally wieldedin dealing with friends and allies, and jeopardizing the position of leadership it hasused to shape bilateral and regional agendas for decades. The consequences would seem no lessdamaging where stability is concerned. As offshore balancers have argued, it may be that U.S. retrenchment would force localpowers to spend more on defense, while perhaps assuaging certain points of friction with countries that feel threatened or encircled removing the American pacifier wouldby U.S. presence. But it equally stands to reason that

liberate the more destabilizing influences that U.S. policy had previously stifled. Long-dormant security competitions might reawaken as countries armed themselves more vigorously;historical antagonisms between old rivals might reemerge in the absence of a robustU.S. presence and the reassurance it provides. Moreover, countries that seek to reviseexisting regional orders in their favorthink Russia in Europe, or China in Asiamight indeed applaud U.S. retrenchment, but theymight just as plausibly feel empowered to more assertively press their interests. If the United States has been a kind of Leviathan inkey regions, Mearsheimer acknowledges, then take away that Leviathan and there is likely to be big trouble.46 Scanning theglobal horizon today, one can easily see where such trouble might arise. In Europe, a revisionist Russia is already destabilizing itsneighbors and contesting the post-Cold War settlement in the region. In the Gulf and broader Middle East, the threat of Iranianascendancy has stoked region-wide tensions manifesting in proxy wars and hints of an incipient arms race, even as that region also In East Asia, a rising China iscontends with a severe threat to its stability in the form of the Islamic State.challenging the regional status quo in numerous ways, sounding alarms among itsneighborsmany of whom also have historical grievances against each other. In these circumstances, removing theAmerican pacifier would likely yield not low-cost stability, but increased conflictand upheaval. That conflict and upheaval, in turn, would be quite damaging to U.S.interests even if it did not result in the nightmare scenario of a hostile power dominating a key region. It is hard toimagine, for instance, that increased instability and acrimony would produce the robustmultilateral cooperation necessary to deal with transnationalthreats from pandemics to piracy. More problematic still might be theeconomic consequences. As scholars like Michael Mandelbaum have argued, the enormous progresstoward global prosperity and integration that has occurred since World War II (and now the ColdWar) has come in the climate of relative stability and security provided largely by theUnited States.47 One simply cannot confidently predict that this progress would endure amid escalating geopoliticalcompetition in regions of enormous importance to the world economy. Perhaps the greatest risk that a strategy ofoffshore balancing would run, of course, is that a key region might not be able to maintain its ownbalance following U.S. retrenchment. That prospect might have seemed far-fetched in the early post-Cold War era, and itremains unlikely in the immediate future. But in East Asia particularly, the rise and growing assertiveness of China hashighlighted the medium-to long-term danger that a hostile power could in fact gain regionalprimacy. If Chinas economy continues to grow rapidly, and if Beijing continues to increase military spending by 10 percent ormore each year, then its neighbors will ultimately face grave challenges in containing Chinesepower even if they join forces in that endeavor. This possibility, ironically, is one to which leading advocates of retrenchmenthave been attuned. The United States will have to play a key role in countering China, Mearshimer writes, because its Asianneighbors are not strong enough to do it by themselves.48 If this is true, however, then offshore balancing becomes a dangerous it could lead countries like Japan andand potentially self-defeating strategy. As mentioned above,

South Korea to seek nuclear weapons, thereby stoking arms races andelevating regional tensions. Alternatively, and perhaps more worryingly, it might encourage the scenario thatoffshore balancers seek to avoid, by easing Chinas ascent to regional hegemony. As Robert Gilpin has written, Retrenchment by itsvery nature is an indication of relative weakness and declining power, and thus retrenchment can have a deteriorating effect on In East Asia today, U.S. allies rely on U.S. reassurance torelations with allies and rivals.49navigate increasingly fraught relationships with a more assertive China preciselybecause they understand that they will have great trouble balancing Beijing on theirown. A significant U.S. retrenchment might therefore tempt these countries toacquiesce to, or bandwagon with, a rising China if they felt that prospects forsuccessful resistance were diminishing as the United States retreated.50 In the same vein, retrenchment would compromise alliancerelationships, basing agreements, and other assets that might help Washington check Chinese power in the first placeand thatwould allow the United States to surge additional forces into theater in a crisis. In sum, if one expects that Asiancountries will be unable to counter China themselves , then reducing U.S.influence and leverage in the region is a curious policy. Offshore balancing mightpromise to preserve a stable and advantageous environment while reducing U.S. burdens. But upon closer analysis, the

probable outcomes of the strategy seem more perilous and

destabilizing than its proponents acknowledge.And US military withdrawal signals abandonment towardsTaiwanLee 14, (Christopher, is an active duty Major in the U.S. Army. A graduate of WestPoint, he has served for eight years as an intelligence officer. He is currently aForeign Area Officer for the Northeast Asia region and a graduate student atColumbia University. The views expressed are his own and not those of the UnitedStates Army or the Department of Defense, TIME FOR U.S. FORCES TO LEAVESOUTH KOREAhttp://warontherocks.com/2014/07/time-for-u-s-forces-to-leave-south-korea/,7/24/14, //VZ)American foreign policy towards the Republic of Korea (hereafter, South Korea) has focused on asubstantial amount of military and economic support and is primarily based on the Mutual Defense Treaty between theUnited States and the Republic of Korea (1953). The mutual defense treaty continues to be the cornerstone of

the security relationship between the two, which guarantees peace and stability by extendeddeterrence28,500 United States Forces Korea (USFK) troops on ground and the U.S. nuclear umbrella .The combined threats of North Koreas nuclear weapons and conventional forces, as well as the specter of the collapse of the Kim Jong-Un family regime, compel the United States

The need to protect South Korea

government to continue its strong military defense of, and economic devotion to, South Korea.

against its neighbor to the north also drivesin partAmericas ongoing

rebalance or pivot towards Asia. President Barack Obama recently reaffirmed Americas dedication to Seoul and the mutualdefense treaty during his official visit to South Korea in April 2014. During that visit, the president promoted his pivot and

pledged a continuing U.S. commitment to a strong alliance with South Korea . Obamareminded South Korean President Park Geun-hye that recent developments in North Korea, such as significant increased activity at Punggye-ri nuclear test site coupled with multiplelong-range missile tests, beckoned for fiercer efforts toward denuclearization.

Fear of abandonment leads Taiwan to get its hands on a

nuclear weapon.Fitzpatrick 16 (Mark; ten years heading the IISS Non-Proliferation and NuclearPolicy Programme, 26-year career in the US Department of State, where for theprevious ten years he focused on non-proliferation issues, 2/2/16, Asias LatentNuclear Powers: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, accessed through UMich Library,BC)As noted earlier,fear of abandonment by the US is the other factor that, inconjunction with fear of the mainland, could possibly again push Taiwan down thenuclear path as an option to replace US protection. Indeed, there could be reasonsto question Washington's Willingness to come to Taiwan's assis-tance inthe future. One reason is Beijing's growing importance to the US in almost every area of economic andtransnational policy, from non-proliferation to climate change. Washington insists that the China relationship will notlead to abandoning allies. Yetsome American commentators have called for stop-ping- armssales to Taiwan in exchange for Beijing's cooperation on other issues of greatergeopolitical importance.89 In fact, Taiwan today does not have a formal US defenceguarantee. The 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which replaced the 1954 defence treaty following thetermination of diplomatic relations, is ambiguous. It declares it is the policy of the US to 'consider any effort todetermine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means ... a threat to the peace and security of the WesternPacific area and of grave concern to the United States', to provide Taiwan with 'arms of a defensive character', andto 'maintain the capacity of the US to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize thesecurity, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan'. This falls far short of the previous commitmentfor military assistance under the 1954 defence treaty, even though commitments under the latter were not airtight,either.% US president Bill Clinton in 2004 acknowledged that the US 'had never said whether we would or wouldn'tcome to the defence of Taiwan if it were attacked'.91 When the US in 2001 designated Taiwan as the equivalent of amajor non-NATO ally, it allowed Taiwan to submit mili-tary equipment requests at any time, rather than annually,but it did not otherwise change the nature of the relationship. And there has been no follow-through on a 2001commitment to help Taiwan acquire modern submarines, of import partly because the US no longer manufacturesdiesel submarines and because other states that do so are unwilling to suffer Beijing's ire.' Although the TRA hassometimes been interpreted to mean that the US will defend Taiwan in the case of an attack, this is not necessarilythe case.To the extent that US deterrence covers Taiwan it is a de facto, not de jure,commitment, and therefore more amenable to change . There is nothing close to a Taiwanequivalent of the extended deterrence consultations the US holds with Japan and South Korea. Taiwan ishardly even mentioned in many American analytical discussions of extendeddeterrence. As a 2010 Policy paper explained, extended deterrence is a latent issue in the Taiwan, case,'subsumed by the larger question of whether the United States would come to the island's defence at all." Thinktanks find it difficult to obtain funding from US governmental and philanthropic foundations for research or Track H One last factor thatevents on extended deterrence for Taiwan. The topic is considered too sensitive.could also contribute to a Taiwan nuclear push would be a breakdown inthe global non-prolif-eration regime. If Japan or South Korea were to go nuclearin response to Chinese and North Korean threats, there would be fewer inhibitionson Taiwan doing so as well. In such a circum-stance, the NPT would be a dead letter .The causation for such a domino effect would not be direct: Japanese or South Korean nuclear weapons would pose since these allies would only seek nuclear weapons in the event ofno threat to Taiwan. Butno longer being able to rely on US protection, there would also be a loss ofcredibility regarding lingering US commitments to not-quite-ally Taiwan.

multiple scenarios for global nuclear war--this is the biggest impact in theround.Kroenig, 16Associate Professor in the Department of Government and School ofForeign Service at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow in the Brent ScowcroftCenter on International Security at the Atlantic Council (Matthew, ApproachingCritical Mass: Asias Multipolar Nuclear Future, National Bureau of Asian ResearchSpecial Report #58, June 2016)

The most important reason to be concerned about nuclear weapons in Asia , of course,is the threat that nuclear weapons might be used. To be sure, the use of nuclearweapons remains remote, but the probability is not zero and the consequencescould be catastrophic. The subject, therefore, deserves careful scrutiny. Nuclear use wouldoverturn a 70-year tradition of nonuse, could result in large-scale death anddestruction, and might set a precedent that shapes how nuclear weapons areviewed, proliferated, and postured decades hence. The dangers of escalation maybe magnified in a multipolar nuclear order in which small skirmishes presentthe potential to quickly draw in multiple powers, each with a finger on thenuclear trigger. The following discussion will explore the logic of crisis escalation and strategic stability in amultipolar nuclear order.14 the existence of multipolar nuclear powers means that crises may pitFirst and foremost,multiple nuclear-armed states against one another. This may be the result of formalplanning if a states strategy calls for fighting multiple nuclear-armed adversaries simultaneously. A state maychoose such a strategy if it believes that a war with one of these states would inevitably mean war with both.Alternatively, in a war between state A and state B, state A may decide to conduct a preventive strike on state C forfear that it would otherwise seek to exploit the aftermath of the war between states A and B. Given U.S. nuclearstrategy in the early Cold War, for example, it is likely that a nuclear war between the United States and the SovietUnion would have also resulted in U.S. nuclear attacks against China, even if China had not been a direct participant conflicts of interest between nuclear powers mayin the precipitating dispute. In addition,inadvertently impinge on the interests of other nuclear-armed states, drawingthem into conflict. There is always a danger that one nuclear power could takeaction against a nuclear rival and that this action would unintentionally cross ared line for a third nuclear power, triggering a tripartite nuclear crisis . Linton Brooks andMira Rapp-Hooper have dubbed this category of phenomena the security trilemma.15 For example, if the UnitedStates were to engage in a show of force in an effort to signal resolve to Russia, such as the flushing of nuclear There is also the issue ofsubmarines, this action could inadvertently trigger a crisis for China.catalytic war. This may be the first mechanism by which Cold War strategists feared that multiple nuclearplayers could increase the motivations for a nuclear exchange. They worried that a third nuclear power,such as China, might conduct a nuclear strike on one of the superpowers, leading thewounded superpower to conclude wrongly that the other superpower was responsibleand thereby retaliate against an innocent state presumed to be the aggressor . Thisoutcome was seen as potentially attractive to the third state as a way of destroying the superpowers and promotingitself within the global power hierarchy. Fortunately, this scenario never came to pass during the Cold War. Withmodern intelligence, reconnaissance, and early warning capabilities among the major powers, it is more difficult toimagine such a scenario today, although this risk is still conceivable among lesstechnologically developed states. In addition to acting directly against one another, nuclearpowers could be drawn into smaller conflicts between their allies and broughtface to face in peak crises. International relations theorists discuss the concept ofchain ganging within alliance relationships, the dangers of which are moresevere when the possibility of nuclear escalation is present .16 Although this was a potentialproblem even in a bipolar nuclear order, the more nuclear weapons states present, thegreater the likelihood of multiple nuclear powers entering a crisis. A similar logicsuggests that the more fingers on the nuclear trigger, the more likely it is thatnuclear weapons will be used. Multipolar nuclear crises are not withouthistorical precedent.17 Several Cold War crises featured the Soviet Union against the United States andits European nuclear-armed allies, Britain and later France. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War involved the United States,the Soviet Union, and a nuclear-armed Israel. The United States has been an interested party in regional nucleardisputes, including the Sino-Soviet border war of 1969 and several crises in the past two decades on the Indian many of these crises stand out as among the most dangerous ofsubcontinent. Indeed,the nuclear era.accelerating our own downfall.

Moving on to Case:No chance of unification, China will intervene to ensure North Korea existsKim 2015 - professor of international finance and the coordinator of finance at the University ofDetroit MercySuk Hi, The Survival of North Korea: A Case for Rethinking the U.S.-North Korea NuclearStandoff, North Korean Review11.1 (Spring 2015): 101-113Since the war prediction and the collapse prediction are not realistic, the most concrete prediction is the continuation of a t wo-state all, China and South Korea need to maintain North Korea as a bufferpeninsula with limited reforms.20 Afterin order to protect their national interests. As a result, North Korea is dependent on China as its greatesteconomic benefactor-negotiating economic aid, inward investment, foreign trade, and political support-especially with the Six-PartyTalks at a standstill since 2009 and with U.S. and UN economic sanctions in effect. Basically, Chinese aid and support arethe economic component, among the cultural-historical and political-ideological factors, preventing a suddencollapse of North Korea, and China will never allow the U.S. to unite the Korean peninsula onAmerican terms. As Chinese objectives toward North Korea protect Chinese interests, international efforts tofoment a North Korean crisis or foreign regime change will always face Chinese resistance . And shouldcircumstances run out of control, China will intervene to restore stability and political order .21

North Korea wont disarmtheyre guaranteed to cheat

Bolton Aug 26, 2015 - senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is a former U.S.ambassador to the UNJohn R, North Korea may seek new nuke deal with weak Obama,www.aei.org/publication/north-korea-may-seek-new-nuke-deal-with-weak-obama/And yet, official Washington is all but asleep on the North Korean threat. President Obama, despite his much-touted pivot from theMiddle East, rarely pays it much attention. Indeed, the pivot itself has faded from view. The 2016 presidential candidates have yetto address the issue seriously. Even West Coast politicians, whose constituents should worry about Obamas gutting of Americasmissile-defense program, seem uninterested. Worse than U.S. inattention, however, is the risk that in the Obama administrationswaning days the president and Secretary of State John Kerry may conclude they have one more gloriousnegotiation left in them. Fresh from signing the Vienna agreement regarding Irans nuclear-weapons program, they may try again with North Korea. Although the American public, by increasingly largemargins, rejects the Vienna deal, the administration seems poised to secure the votes it needs to preserve it from congressionalopposition. Pyongyang may have the same negotiation scenario in mind, although for exactly opposite reasons . Kim Jong Unlikely sees Irans diplomatic triumph in Vienna for what it was: a determined, persistent nuclearweapons aspirant, aided politically by Russia and China, was able to grind down a weak andcredulous American president. Using a sustained campaign of threats, falsehoods and stubbornness, Tehran achieved allits strategic objectives in the negotiations with the Security Councils five permanent members and Germany. North Koreacould well conclude it can accomplish precisely the same objectiv e. After all, that kind of diplomacy has been itstrademark since the Korean War. Kims biggest problem is that Obamas term would end before Pyongyang could extract all theconcessions it desired. So, if Pyongyang wanted to find a way to initiate negotiations quickly, what better way than to start off with amilitary provocation along the DMZ? Neither presidential candidates nor congressional leaders can stopObama from pursuing yet another illusory diplomatic triumph as a second-term legacy . Butsober analysts should do whatever they can to prevent the Obama White House from making stillmore concessions to a dictatorial regime that, based on its entire history, has no intention of keepingits side of any bargain. This is very dangerous terrain, far more serious than merely exchangingartillery fire.

Having troops stationed at the border is the only way to

prevent escalation and minimize the impact of the collapseMetz 2015- Director of Research at the Strategic Studies InstituteSteven, "Strategic Insights: Thinking About Catastrophe: The Army in a NuclearArmed World," Dec 14,www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/Thinking-About-Catastrophe/2015/12/14Nothing is more important to American security than nuclear weapons. Despite all the fretting over terrorism,hybrid threats, and conventional aggression, only nuclear weapons can threaten the existence of the United Statesand destroy the global economy. This is certainly not news to American policymakers and military strategists: theyhave recognized the centrality of nuclear weapons at least since the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb in1949. But so far, U.S. strategy has focused almost exclusively on deterring attacks from a hostile nuclear state,preventing unfriendly nations from acquiring nuclear weapons and, after the break up of the Soviet Union, keepingnuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. These missions remain vitally important, but today there is anadditional, less understood, element of the nuclear threat. As more states join the nuclear club, including some withbrittle or unpredictable regimes , a conflict not involving the United States could escalate to thenuclear level or a government could lose control of nuclear weapons or see themused during a large scale civil war. A catastrophe of this sort would devastate theglobal economy and environment, destroy political stability across entire regions,and unleash an unprecedented humanitarian disaster. This means that American strategistsand political leaders must expand the way they think about nuclear weapons. In addition to the traditional the United States must now considerdeterrence and efforts to control what are often called "loose nukes,"stabilization, relief, and reconstruction operations following a nuclear exchange, andlarge scale, protracted operations to deal with loose nukes after the collapse of agovernment or during a major internal conflict. The Army would play a leading role inoperations of this sort. Imagine a brittle, corrupt, ineffective or repressive government facing mounting internalopposition including large-scale public protests and riots; intense criticism from social media; factionalism withinthe elite; escalating terrorism and internal violence; economic stagnation, inflation, and widespread unemployment;and military discontent. If history is a guide, the beleaguered regime would particularly fear its armed forces. ToAmericans, it might seem that the logical reaction would be to address the causes of discontent and undertakeserious reform. However, brittle and repressive regimes can read history too. They know that reform can easilyspiral out of the control and lead to the regime's demise. Many dictators who tried to placate intense oppositionwith reform ended up dead or in exile. There are other options that might seem appealing. Sometimes crackdownsand increased repression works. Another time tested response is distraction: by trumpeting an external threat, theregime inspires its opponents to "rally 'round the flag." Importantly, the armed forces, which are the most proximatethreat to a beleaguered regime, will tend to shift their focus to the external threat rather than the shortcomings ofits government. History is littered with examples of beleaguered regimes attempting strategic distraction.Sometimes the results were tragicthink the seizure of the Falkland Islands by the Argentinian military dictatorshipin 1982but not catastrophic. In a world of nuclear states, though, distracting the public, elites, and armed forcesfrom internal problems by external assertiveness could lead neighboring states or adversaries to counter escalate,thus beginning a slide toward doomsday. After all, that is exactly how World War I began. In the modern era, though,doomsday might not mean four years of horrific trench warfare, but a nuclear strike or exchange by frightened the more brittle a regime,states convinced that lashing out is their only chance of survival. Unfortunately,the greater the chances it will attempt to distract attention from its flaws. The pathto doomsday could also begin with civil war or regime collapse in a nuclear armedstate. Nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of malfeasant or desperate forceswilling to use them or willing to sell them to buy conventional weapons and payfighters. The bigger, more complex, and chaotic the nuclear state, the greater the danger posed by regimecollapse and internal conflict. Of today's nuclear states, North Korea is the most brittle andunpredictable. If nuclear weapons are used in the next few decades, odds are thatPyongyang will be the culprit. To deter this as much as possible, official U.S. policy should state that anyuse of nuclear weapons by North Korea will result in occupation and regime change. Only the White House can the U.S. military,develop such a policy and it should obtain congressional backing as well, butparticularly the Army, can make it more credible by demonstrating its ability to notonly destroy North Korean military targets, but also to occupy and stabilize thatnation if necessary. Deterrence requires capability, communication, and credibility. The better theU.S. military is at being capable of removing and replacing the North Korean regime,the less likely North Korea will believe that it can get away with using nuclearweapons. Admittedly, China would be opposed to such a policy, but that could have benefits, clarifying the risksof North Korea's behavior and encouraging Beijing to be more active in controlling that dangerous nation.

China says no to the plan

Stanton 2015- an attorney in Washington, D.C., has advised the House ForeignAffairs Committee on North Korea-related legislationJosh, "China helps N Korea nuke up & break sanctions, then says sanctions don'twork," Nov 3, freekorea.us/2015/11/03/china-helps-n-korea-nuke-up-break-sanctions-then-says-sanctions-dont-work/Whether the Chinese actually believe this or are willfully disinforming us, our survey says that four out of fiveChinese experts are dealing in falsehoods. Why does China play these games? Lots of reasons, Isuppose, not all of them mutually exclusive. The fact that well-connected Chinese companies aremaking a lot of money from their North Korea trade would be reason enough . After all,that seems to be why South Korea continues to subsidize trade with North Korea, contrary to its nationalinterests. Other, more malign motives may also play a part a desire to distract U.S.power in the region, to gain bargaining leverage over the U.S. on the Taiwan issue,an institutional hostility to the U.S. and its interests, and as part of a granderambition to finlandize both Koreas (which is easier done by keeping themdivided). Its all speculative, of course. Whats beyond denying is that China isnt interested in solving thisproblem; China is the problem. And until Chinas support for North Korea drawsconsequences in its relations with the U.S. and its allies, it will continue to be.

South Korea does not want the plan, purposefully ruins thediplomatic efforts--causes an aggressive response from NorthKorea, risking U.S.-Sino conflict.Schake 14 (Kori Schake, fellow at the Hoover Institution, December 29, 2014. Pushing for Regime Change aggressively trying to topple the Kim regimein North Korea Is a Bad Idea - Whycould backfire -- badly. http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/29/haass-of-cards-richard-north-korea-wall-street-journal/)In the pages of the Wall Street Journal, the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass makes an unusually recklessrecommendation for the doyen of establishment thinking: ending North Koreas existence as an independententity. I am sympathetic to the advocacy of regime change in North Korea there is no better case, either onstrategic or humanitarian grounds. Intervention in North Korea would liberate 200,000 Koreans trapped inconcentration camps, provide nutritional assistance to the 80 percent of Koreans suffering long-term deprivation,reunite families separated for more than two generations, negate the nuclear weapons threat currently posed bythe Kim regime, alleviate the need for stationing American forces on the peninsula, remove the threat from 10,000North Korean artillery pieces trained on Seoul, and end the proliferation pipeline that has assisted nuclear weaponsprograms in Pakistan, Syria, and Iran. If it works, that is. And thats the problem with Haasssrecommendation: It assumes that we can turn the screws on Kim Jong Unwithout catastrophic responses or the collapse of North Korea burgeoning into chaos.Which is surprising from someone who wrote so ardently about the mistakes of such wars of choice. Implicit inHaasss argument is that we are already at war of a tepid kind with North Korea, with the threat of much largerconflagration looming. But those arguments were likewise made of Iraq, and Iraq had much less manifest means todamage both the United States and our treaty allies. His argument is premised on confidence that he understands if only we provided the right incentives, China wouldboth Chinese and Korean choices thatflip from bolstering Pyongyang. But the United States has been trying forover a decade to turn that trick, with precious little sign of progress. Haass argues thatChinas calculus is now changing, that North Korea is becoming a liability: Whereas Beijing previously supported concern about refugees,North Korea for reasons of ideology, restraining American influence, andits overwhelming concern now is for years and more likely decadesof relative stability in the region so that it can continue to addressits many domestic challenges. Stability may be what China needs, but that doesnt appear tobe what China is choosing. Indeed, there appears to be little evidence that Beijing iswilling to back away from Pyongyang. It is similarly plausible that China still sees a scaryNorth Korea as useful in tying down Washingtons attention. It may well prefer that North Korea continues toimprison its people rather than China having to police them. And Beijing might well be confident that Japan isconstrained domestically against nuclear weapons development. Moreover, the possibility may even exist for anagreement with South Korea that worries about the credibility of an American security guarantee. After all, fromSeouls perspective President George W. Bush said the United States would not allow a nuclear North Korea buthe did. At the same time, Washington denuclearized half of the Korean peninsula, removing U.S. nuclear weapons but two-thirds of South Koreans now favor developing nuclear weapons of their own. President Barack Obamasrecord on enforcing red lines (hint: not good) will only have further aggravated South Koreas anxiety. Haass pointsout that China appears more interested in relations with Seoul than with Pyongyang; perhaps China hopes toachieve a peninsular condominium with the South Korean government to slowly shift dependence of North Koreafrom China to South Korea. All of which is to say, as Haass himself has persuasively argued, that it is unsound topremise a regime change strategy on the basis of speculative flights that are likely to be wrong in many respects.The other major flaw in Haasss argument is lighting a fuse without putting adequate defense preparations in place.His proposals for undermining it from within and denuding it of Chinese support corner the Kim regime.These are deeply destabilizing moves against an erratic regime that boastsof targeting its nuclear weapons at Los Angeles and Colorado Springs. Setting this train of events in motion wouldmake North Koreas a government with nothing to lose and thats the mostdangerous kind. It is also far beyond what South Korea, the ally most exposedto North Korean retaliation, is likely to support. Another problem with Haasss Time to End the NorthKorean Threat is that it is innocent of the scaffolding that international institutions and regional alliances provide But getting theand require. Haass recommends a trilateral U.S.-Chinese-South Korean understanding.peace right will require much more: assuaging South Korean and Japanese anxietyabout reducing American troops; assuring the Philippines and others that anagreement between China, the United States, and South Korea as Richardadvocates will not result in abandoning their concerns about Chinese militaryprovocations; ramping up U.N. involvement to manage the horrors internal to North Korea;ensuring the Russians see no angle to exploit ; and verifying weapons dont flood outto other rogue regimes. Haass is right that the United States government should be providing assurances to theChinese government that it would not take advantage of the Kim regimes collapse to move American militaryforces north of the 38th parallel. Stability forces will surely be needed, but South Koreans would be much better atthe work anyway, as they speak the language and have ties of nationality and family to facilitate interaction. Weought also to be seeking assurances from the Chinese they also would not move forces into a North Korean vacuum.While persuading the Chinese to ratchet down their support for Kim Jong Un merits continuing effort, there is onlyone lever that has shown any real success in dealing with the North Korean regime: cutting off their money. Themain sources of revenue for the North Korean leadership are evidently counterfeiting and proliferation. The formerUnder Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey created a team of Treasury experts andmasterminded the means of sleuthing the money trail; his offices pressure in 2007 on Banco Delta Asia in Macaubrought North Korea into cooperation. It is an elegant, quiet, and deadly serious means of applying smart powerthat hurts the regime without imposing further suffering on its benighted citizens. And its far closer to theproportionate response President Obama hinted at for North Koreas hacking of Sony Entertainment and threatsagainst movie theaters showingThe Interview. These sanctions on leading regime figures are still the most practicalmeans to try and affect the behavior of North Koreas evil government.